Captain Jack Sparrow Compass  SBMR-SPARROWCOMPASS   $194  Expedited Shipping Available! E-mail service@strongblade.com or call 866-7SWORDS This item is no longer available.    Nautical Navigation and Compasses Time and time again seafarers have looked out across the blue-green sea, toward the beautiful cloud formations in the distance, perhaps a gull or two hovering in the wind, and asked the same important philosophical question: "Where the Hell am I?" Throughout history, mariners have found unique ways to answer that question. The first recorded method of getting from point A to point B by sea was, of course, to follow shores. But sometimes, you just had grit your teeth and sail out of sight of land. In short hops, the Phoenicians, masters of trade, used signal fires. Sailors sailed in the proper direction until they saw the fire in the distance, then aimed for it. Sort of like ancient lighthouses. But that technique wasn't very efficient, and anyways, too many Phoenician sailors were ending up at Apollo's Bonfire and Buffet Restaurant on the Greece's southern shore. So, sailors started learning about the stars, and how to navigate using them. This was good at night, but not so good during the day, or on cloudy evenings. Sailors then started timing their routes, using a crude form of what is known as "Dead Reckoning." They would time their route using hourglasses and lots of prayer. This wasn't much better though, especially on long routes, since: A. The wind and water varied quite a bit, so no two trips to the same place took exactly the same amount of time. B. Hourglasses are hardly precision time-pieces and C. sailors thought the term "dead reckoning" sounded too much like making your peace before dying. Some intrepid sailors in Scandinavia (read:vikings) had the right idea: they let otehrs do their dirty work. It's reported that some scandinavian sailors would bring crows with them on their journeys. When they thought they might be near land, they would release one crow. If the crow flew in circles, then they knew they were nowhere near land. If the crow flew in one direction, they would follow it, knowing that the crow had found land (this occasionally led to horrendous sea-collisions when crows from different ships in different places were released and the crows decided to mate. Okay, that's an outright lie, but it could've happened, no?) The nautical, magnetic compass was created sometime in the early 13th century. Crude versions of the compass involved rubbing a needle against a loadstone, then placing the needle in a blade of grass or a small leaf. The grass or leaf was then placed in a cup of water, and the needle would rotate until it faced North. Neat trick, that. The fact that compasses pointed north always was great for sailors. The fact that it pointed to Magnetic North instead of True North was not as great. Sailors eventually realized how to compensate for this complicated problem and were able to, finally, find Apollo's Bonfire and Buffet Restaurant by choice and not by accident. Johnny Depp revolutionized pirates in film with his virtuoso performance as Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl". The movie (and his adept (or should we say, a-Depp) interpretation of the role created a Pirate-fervor across the world. There was merchandising aplenty for Sparrow-inspired goods, but no one tried to recreate the most important pieces of Sparrow's equipment; With the sequel, "Dead Man's Chest", coming out in Summer of 2006, Master Replicas has corrected that mistake. The Jack Sparrow sword and Jack Sparrow Flintlock Pistol have both been masterfully re-created and presented for the pleasure of collectors around the world. The fictional Captain Sparrow was, originally, the captain of the equally fictional Black Pearl, one of the most feared pirate ships in the Caribbean. He was a fierce fighter, a strong captain and perhaps a little too kind of heart for a pirate. He had a certain eccentric class that makes him endearing, despite his constant state of drunkenness and his wobbly gait. Captain Jack Sparrow's crew mutinied against him and marooned him on a deserted island. His First Mate, Barbossa, took command of the ship and promptly triggered a curse on himself and his crew by stealing a chest of cursed Aztec gold coins. Sparrow in the meantime either saved himself by riding sea turtles off the island or was rescued by rumrunners who used the island as a cache for their goods, depending on who you ask. From then on, he staggered and listed when he walked, slurred his speech and spasmed occasionally. Most of those traits allegedly came from heat stroke suffered on the island he was marooned at. The slurred speech, however, comes from his seemingly perpetual state of drunkeness. Johnny Depp claims that one of his primary inspirations for the role was Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Fairly odd, but it makes sense in some weird sort of way. Master Replicas tells us that the several different versions of the Captain Jack Sparrow sword were made for the movie. For closes up shots, they made a real sword -- heavy, steel, you know the type. For action sequences, they made fake aluminum versions that could be swung more easily. Strongblade wisdom holds that, if you can't swing your sword, then you don't deserve it. But in this case, we'll let it slide. It is Johnny Depp, after all. Pirates Romanticized and vilified in literature and film, pirates have been the subject of endless fascination. Pirates of course, are any group of sailors who prey upon other ships, stealing money or goods and sometimes harming or killing the crew. Eye patches seem to have something to do with piracy as well, but no one can really figure out what. It's hard to say when pirating first started. There are reports of pirates as far back as ancient Greece, and possibly even before, but the pirates that most people think of are the ones from the 17th through the 19th centuries. This was a time when governments actually sanctioned piracy against their enemies (apparently, it was okay to steal from and murder people as long as they were considered enemies of your country). Under these government laws, anyone could attack ships belonging to an enemy country and keep anything that they could recover from the ships. Crews that took advantage of these laws were called "Privateers," which was French for "mean guys with parrots," or "men who drink rum." Well, okay. Privateer isn't really French at all. But "soufflé" is, and it means a "light fluffy dish of egg yolks and stiffly beaten egg whites mixed with cheese or fish or fruit." Many countries encouraged privateers, including England, Spain, America, France, and many North African countries (these African countries formed the heart of the infamous Barbary Coast pirates). And while the idea of privateers might have sounded good when it was first thought up, it lost some of its charm later on. Here’s why: The privateers theorized that, "Hey, if I can get 100 gold a month attacking enemy ships, I could probably get 400 a month attacking any ship." They began testing that hypothesis and, soon, there were hundreds (thousands even) of former privateers attacking any ship that came near them. Thus began the Golden Age of Piracy.

Anne Bonny was probably the most famous female pirate in history. Her famous words to fellow pirate Jack Rackham (who hid in a hold on his ship when his ship was boarded) immediately before he was hanged as a pirate? "I'm sorry to see you here, Jack, but if you had fought like a man you needn't hang like a dog". Strongblade has plenty of pirate swords, pirate flintlocks, and pirate accessories. So pick some up and fight like a man (or woman).

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